To: Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator, Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior, and Governor Gavin Newsom

Tell EPA to protect the Pacific Ocean from fracking

Oil companies are fracking in the seabed of the Pacific--using toxic chemicals in sensitive areas and where blue and humpback whales congregate. Please step in and protect the Pacific Ocean, and the wildlife that depend on it, from dangerous fracking.

Why is this important?

An Associated Press story reported that oil companies have been fracking off our coasts for years and basically no one in California, including the California Coastal Commission, knew about it.

What’s even more egregious, federal regulations exempt fracking wastewater from clean water laws, so oil companies have been dumping this toxic, chemical-laden wastewater right back into the ocean -- right in areas where blue and humpback whales congregate.

We need the EPA and Department of the Interior to step in and protect the Pacific and its wildlife from dangerous fracking.

The wastewater contains chemicals that are “toxins to fish larvae and crustaceans, bottom dwellers most at risk from drilling activities, according to government health disclosure documents detailing some of the fluids used off California's shore”.

Seven California legislators just sent a letter to the EPA and Department of the Interior calling for new regulations for fracking in the seabed.